


Super Cool Christmas Party People

by Ultra



Category: Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Cousins, Crossover, Eliot Spencer's Cooking, F/M, Family, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Kissing, Mistletoe, Parker Being Parker (Leverage), Secret Santa, Snark, Team as Family, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 15:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16935630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: When it comes to the Avengers Christmas Party, only Eliot Spencer is trusted to cater for it. Darcy's more than glad to have her cousin (and his girlfriend, Parker) around for the Holidays - she could use a little help since she developed a new crush on a particularly magical man...





	Super Cool Christmas Party People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meilan_Firaga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/gifts).



> So, I tried to get clever and combine two of Meilan_Firaga's fandoms and several of her prompts - I now have no idea if what I've produced is entirely what was requested, but I did my best, so hopefully it's cool ;)

“For the last time, Parker, keep your hands off the food!”

Eliot moved as if to slap her fingers but knew that, as fast as she was, even he would never make contact. He glared at her anyway and she stuck out her tongue.

“Seriously?” he said, hardly able to stay angry at her as she hopped up to sit on the cabinet to his right - sometimes she was just too cute.

“Bet he wouldn’t mind if you put your hands elsewhere, Parker,” said Darcy walking up to the counter and leaning on it, grinning salaciously.

“Eliot has a no sex in the kitchen rule.” Parker rolled her eyes.

“I also have a no talking about sex in my kitchen rule,” Eliot growled, trying to get back to preparing dinner.

Apparently, the girls had no intention of letting him be, as Darcy playfully slapped him across the bicep.

“When’d you get so boring, cous?”

“Oh, he’s not boring,” Parker piped up then, around a mouthful that Eliot couldn’t understand since he had just stopped her from stealing the food, hadn’t he? “Sometimes when we’re alone-”

“Parker!” he snapped, immediately turning wide eyes on her. “She’s my cousin, she does not want to hear that.”

“No offence, but she’s not the only one,” said a new voice.

Even Eliot felt like he might be blushing as he turned back to see Steve Rogers stood in front of him.

“Captain,” he said, nodding once.

“Please, it’s just Steve,” he insisted, hands up in some kind of mock surrender. “We’re all friends here, right?” he said, gesturing to the assembled guests at the Christmas party.

“Meh. More like a team.” Darcy shrugged.

“A little more than a team,” said Parker, grinning.

Eliot glanced back at her with a smirk he couldn’t help.

“This is amazing,” Steve was saying when he looked back to find Captain America swallowing down a bite from an appetiser.

“Thank you, Captain... Steve,” he corrected himself, feeling stupid.

“You didn’t smack his hand,” his girlfriend muttered.

“Sorry, was I not supposed to-”

“It’s fine,” Eliot assured him. “Parker was just trying to take more than her share, which is normal. Weirdly, it’s the only thing about her that is.”

“Normal’s over-rated,” said his cousin, reaching for her own snack - much like Parker, she did get her hand smacked.

“Can’t you go bug your superhero buddies for a while?” Eliot urged her, even as Steve realised he was going to end up in the middle of something he would rather not be a part of and slipped away again.

“Not really,” said Darcy, blowing her hair off her face. “Dr Green Meanie, Iron Balls, and your tech guy are getting their serious nerd on, I don’t even want to try and keep up with that,” she complained, resting her chin in her hand. “Arrow Boy and the Spider Lady kinda freak me out, truth be told.”

“What about Thor?” Eliot suggested, gesturing to where the God of Thunder stood talking with Dr Stephen Strange. “I thought you guys were pretty close.”

“Not close, like you and Parker close.” Darcy rolled her eyes. “Just friends close.”

“So, go talk to your friend.”

“No can do, cous.”

“Because the wizard freaks you out too?”

“No!” she denied it fast, too fast as far as Eliot could tell, and the look on her face was a little too distinctive to be ignored.

“Darcy?”

“What? So, I like him, so what?” she said, squirming in her seat.

Eliot shook his head, turning to stir the sauce still bubbling away on the stove. Maybe he ought to worry that Parker seemed to have disappeared at some point, but he doubted even she could do too much harm with all these superheroes around.

“He’s not your type is all,” he told Darcy then, glancing at the good doctor out of the corner of his eye.

“Oh, yeah? And what’s my type?” she asked almost crossly. “C’mon, cousin who has barely seen me in ten years, tell me exactly what my type of guy is? You think he’s too smart and all-powerful for me, is that it?”

Eliot smirked. “I didn’t say that, you did.”

“Yeah, I know.” Darcy sighed, burying her face in her arms on the counter top for a moment. “Ugh, I don’t know what it is about him,” she admitted as she came back up for air. “I mean, Strange by name, strange by nature, right? But there’s just something... Maybe it’s the power,” she considered. “Mostly I think it’s just because he’s the one guy here that gives me nothing to work with. You know me, I can flirt with anybody, but with him? Nothing.”

“Maybe he’s shy.” Eliot shrugged, moving to open the oven door behind him and check on the rest of the food.

“A shy superhero?”

“Could happen.”

“Or maybe he just thinks I’m a weirdo.”

“Some guys like weirdos,” said Parker, appearing as if from nowhere as Eliot closed the oven door again to reveal her like a magician, albeit he had no idea she was there.

“Yeah, and some guys love ‘em,” he admitted, planting a quick kiss on her lips before getting straight back to the task at hand.

“You two are too cute.” Darcy made a face. “I could barf.”

“Not near the food, I hope,” said a voice. “That would be horribly unsanitary.”

Eliot tried not to grin as he watched the colour drain from Darcy’s face on realising Strange was stood right beside her. He encouraged Parker to look elsewhere and made a big deal of turning his own back on Darcy and the doctor too.

“Hi,” he heard his cousin say. “How’re things, Doc?”

“I’ve been suffering through the boredom of what passes for shop-talk in the superhero profession, and waiting for this Secret Santa event to get started. Apparently, you’re the person who needs to give the go ahead for that and some people are eager to see what the jolly fat man in red hasn’t bought them,” he explained, rolling his eyes.

Eliot pulled Parker closer and whispered in her ear;

“You didn’t steal anything from under the tree this year, right?”

“Nope,” she promised, earning a sweet kiss on the cheek from her boyfriend.

“You guys want to do the gift thing, now would be the time,” said Eliot, turning back to look at Darcy. “We’re fifteen minutes away from dinner being ready to go.”

She nodded and hopped down from her stool, heading further into the fray. Putting her fingers in her mouth to whistle loudly, she managed to get everybody’s attention and invited them to see if they could find the gift that belonged to them under the enormous tree in the corner of the room.

Darcy herself stood back to watch the general melee that followed. While the Birdman and the Spiderboy ran right into the pile of presents, eager to see what they got, the likes of Steve and Bucky hung back, clearly finding it all sweet but a little silly, and Tony took the time to explain to Vision the point of the exercise again.

It was amusing enough to see Steve open a box to find a pair of star-spangled underwear inside that made him blush, and just a little scary to watch Nat smile about the fancy shoes she got with concealed blades in the heels. Bucky got a journal for his feelings, while Wanda looked less than impressed by some headband type of a thing that someone clearly thought she might appreciate. Then suddenly Stephen Strange was opening his gift and Darcy was holding her breath until finally, she saw him smile. She sighed with relief, attention entirely taken by the object of her affection. She never noticed her cousin move up behind her until he spoke.

“You rigged Secret Santa,” he said softly.

“No,” Darcy insisted, even as she jumped with surprise. “Maybe,” she amended off Eliot’s disbelieving look. “Hey, it’s not a crime.”

He shook his head but was smiling nonetheless as he returned to the kitchen and to Parker who was looking a little too tempted by the food he had already started to lay out. Darcy was so busy watching them this time that she didn’t notice another presence behind her until there was a firm tap on her shoulder.

“Darcy, do you not wish to receive your gift?” asked Thor, waving the brightly wrapped box around in front of her.

“Oh, sure. Thanks.” She smiled, taking it from her and tearing into the paper.

A too-loud bout of laughter escaped her lips as she realised what was inside the box, hardly needing to question who had bought her such a ridiculously kinky gift. It had to be Stark, he was the only one with that much gall. She moved back towards the kitchen area, showing Eliot and Parker what she had received.

“Well, at least what I bought was a rousing success,” she noted, closing the box and dropping it onto the counter with a thud, “even if what I got wasn’t so much. I still have ten minutes to threaten the life of the Playboy Millionaire, right?”

“Pretty much.” Eliot nodded, watching her walk away.

“I picked up your gift,” Parker told him, though he was barely listening as he watched his cousin a moment. “I don’t know-”

“Hey, Parker. Take a look,” Eliot told her, pointing to the spot where Darcy had been intercepted by Strange on her way to tear a snarky strip off of Stark.

The couple watched with interest as Strange said something that was accompanied by a smile, and Darcy blushed bright enough for Eliot and Parker to see the redness of her cheeks even so far away across the room. The next moment, Rhodey was pointing out the mistletoe over the pair’s head and even though Darcy was making ‘no way’ gestures and Eliot was damn sure Strange was never going to make that move, in the next second, the wizard was pulling Darcy closer and planting his lips on hers.

“Huh. That’s weirdly cute,” said Parker, tilting her head as she stared at them.

Eliot shrugged like he could care less. “At least they’re not doing that in my kitchen.”

“Hey, Grumpy, I brought your gift from Secret Santa and stashed it under the counter,” she told him, poking him in the shoulder as he laid out the last of the food. “It has to be better than mine.” She rolled her eyes. “From the way he was smiling, I think maybe the Falcon bought it for me,” she said then, opening the gift box that bore her own name and showing Eliot what lie inside.

“I’ll kill him,” he growled immediately.

“Relax, it’s not like I’ll ever wear them,” Parker insisted, closing the box, “or that he’d see it if I did,” she realised, peeking in at the lingerie one more time. “Anyway, let’s see what you got,” she said then, encouraging him to leave the food just for a minute and play.

Eliot rolled his eyes, wiped his hands off on a dish towel and went in search of the gift she just hid for him. It was a pretty small box, but then some of the best gifts came in smaller packages. Prising the lid off the fairly plain box, Eliot found a real impressive watch laying inside.

“That’s really somethin’,” he said, taking it out and putting it right on his wrist. “Parker?”

“What?”

He stared at her a moment, meeting her eyes and trying to see the truth. Parker never lied to him, he trusted her not to, but she liked to keep secrets here and there, ones that didn’t matter much. She was real good at it sometimes, too good, in fact.

“You and Darcy, you rig this thing together?” he checked.

Parker grinned. “I like your cousin,” she said, neither confirming nor denying his suspicions directly. “She’s fun. I guess it runs in the family.”

Eliot grinned back at her, his hand sliding behind her head to pull her closer and kiss her firmly on the lips. “You wanna go tell everyone dinner’s ready?” he asked as he released her.

“Sure,” she agreed, nodding her head before scampering away like an excited kid.

Eliot glanced at his new watch then cast an eye over the dinner he had prepared and the beautiful table laid out for all the guests at the Christmas party. Those guests wandered over then. Friends, like family in some cases, but also heroes to one and all. They were all talking, laughing, smiling, just enjoying a little down time all together and at peace. Eliot took in a breath and let it out slow, a wide smile taking over his face.

“Not a bad Christmas,” he said to himself, grabbing himself a drink and moving to join the party at last.


End file.
